Floyd Mayweather made it clear that he’d come out of retirement for one fight. (Getty)
If you ask Floyd Mayweather, the only fight that would bring him out of retirement is one against UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor. As a matter of fact, Mayweather said that the fight was offered to McGregor during an appearance on ESPN’s “First Take.”
“Conor McGregor keeps telling everybody that he wants the fight, let’s make it happen,” the 49-0 boxer said while drawing the proverbial line in the sand. He then laid out the terms that were offered for the potential megafight.
“We tried to make the Conor McGregor fight,” Mayweather said. “They knew what my number was. My number is a guaranteed $100 million. And we’re the ‘A’ side. I don’t know how much money he has made but I’m pretty sure that he hasn’t made $10 million in an MMA bout but we are willing to give him $15 million and we can talk about splitting the percentage on pay per view.”
The potential boxing match has many, many hurdles to clear before it were to ever come to fruition, but Mayweather said that he has done his part to make the fight happen. But McGregor’s financial demands are causing an impasse.
“How can a guy talk about [making] $20 or $30 million if he has never even made $8 or $9 million,” Mayweather said. Beyond the asking price, there is the fact that the fight would have to be cleared and negotiated by the UFC as McGregor is under contract with the MMA promotion.
With the fight being in Mayweather’s domain of a boxing ring, many believe that it would be terribly one-sided considering that McGregor has never competed in a boxing match.
“That’s not my fault,” Mayweather said in response to the prevailing thought that he’d dominated a boxing match. The former pound for pound king made it very clear that a fight with McGregor is purely from a business standpoint as he isn’t concerned one iota with the Irishman’s ability as a boxer. “I believe in working smart, not hard.”
Mayweather made it very clear that he’s happily retired and there is no fight outside of McGregor that would bring him back into competition. Not even a rematch with Manny Pacquiao, which smashed all pay-per-view records, entices Mayweather to box again. But silencing McGregor and making a ton of money is certainly intriguing.
“The only fight I’m interested in is the Conor McGregor fight. I’m a business man and it makes more business sense,” Mayweather said. “Conor McGregor keeps telling everybody that he wants the fight, let’s make it happen.”
Obviously, this is Mayweather’s version of the story and could be looked at as a means to remain in the spotlight rather than actually bringing the fight to fruition. Either way, the fight that is seemingly impossible to make will remain one of the most talked about events of the year.